Monday, July 14, 2008

GoogleHer

The other night I did something that I had never done before: I Googled myself.

(No, seriously, I'd never done it, not once. Seriously. Because, you know, I'd heard you could go blind from it.)

Here's the thing about Googling yourself: once you start, you can't stop. Even when you go through a page of Google listings that have nothing to do you - I share my name, apparently, with numerous Irish women of the 19th century, and at least one high school sophomore in Chicago with a distinguished record in middle-distance running - it's fascinating. And it's all the more fascinating when you hit pages upon pages of links to references to yourself. Look - there's me mentioned in the Globe And Mail! There's my AlphaMom interview! There's my first peer-reviewed academic article! There's that cheesy essay about being Prime Minister that I wrote as an undergrad! Look, everyone: my 15 (fractions of) gigabytes of fame!

It is, in some respects, I suppose, the 21st century equivalent of rifling through a shoebox of mementos - the newspaper clippings that your mom collected and kept in a ragged file folder, the tattered certificates of achievement, that undergraduate essay that got published, somewhere, the picture of your graduating class - except that the things you find aren't things that you've saved - they're things that the Internet has saved. The virtual detritus of an unfamous but not entirely obscure life. Which makes it a little surreal. I came across that aforementioned undergraduate essay, along with a handful of professional academic articles, a lot of blog-related miscellany and an assortment of virtual newspaper clippings about awards and speeches and the various whatnots of an overfunctioning young woman trying to prove herself in a world that records bits and pieces of that life in code, and holds it out for anyone to see.

That Google search revealed, in some small and completely messed up way, an index of my life (and, of course, my blog life, which may or may not be the same thing) as it has been captured on the virtual screen. It is, for better or for worse, my biography as it appears to the virtual world. So I thought, why not use it to introduce myself? It is, after all, BlogHer week, and we should really be trying to get to know each other, better, no? And what better way to get to know a blogger than through her online profile? Herewith, then - Five Things That You Can Learn About Me Through Google:1) Despite my protestations to the contrary, I am Tracy Flick. Rather, I was Tracy Flick, once upon a time. I am so not kidding. My career as an undergraduate was one long exercise in look how good I am! I am smart! And a good person! OMG I can totally save the world!

4) Misanthropy gets old fast, though, so I turned my professional interests to love, sex and virtue in the history of political philosophy. Because, you know, love and sex are much more fun to think and write about than are grumpy, bourgeois-hating old men who may or may not indulge in a little cannibalism. Which brought me around to the field of academic research that I stuck with, which was women - and specifically motherhood - in the history of political philosophy. How did I get from misanthropic critiques of bourgeois liberalism to motherhood? Basically, this: they are, if done properly, the same thing.

5) Which brought me here, to the state of being and creating that is Her Bad Mother. Here - the domain of my Bad Motherness, Badtopia, Badmotherlandia, the Badlands - speaks for itself, I think. But if you're new to HBM, and don't feel like spending hours reading the archives, or if you just want a refresher on what I look and sound like (I am so much more, after all, than just words on a screen) Google offers you this HBM Live With LeahPeah On AlphaMom TV moment:

It's two years old, but I haven't really changed all that much. At all, really. So there you go. Just look for the blond bobbed, recovering-Tracy-Flick-with-babe-in-arms in San Francisco. That'll be me.

(Um, hey? You should totally do this too! GoogleHer yourself! You know, for fun and edification.)

I have had a google alert set to my name for several years. Then I get an email when anything is printed about Bonnie Sayers. Turns out there is a Politician with same name and she googled our name and found me and wanted some comments deleted at an opinion site, so we contacted mgmt to get it done.

it is good to do to see if anyone is using your content without permission and then send them a cease and desist ltr. Also there is copyscape to check your links.

This post is so funny for me. I Googled you way back when I first discovered blogging and was kind of stalkery obsessed with you. :) I haven't followed your links yet, but I can dimly recall a lot of them.

Also, I am going to bet right now that we alllllll share a name with fantastically gifted high school athletes. That's the kind of thing that always makes it up on the internet, full names. And I have a kind of a weird name, as you know: and yet? high school teachers and start athletes share my name. Weeeeeeiiiird.

Considering the fact that I was named after an actress and country-western movie star, my name comes up everywhere. What really horrified me though was seeing my name, MY REAL name, come up in association with a name I used on air back in the good old days of being a DJ. And here I thought I was so careful. Not so much I guess.

Google can be addictive...next time you have a sec, enter Tracy needs into the Google search field and enjoy a giggle or two at what it comes up with. Apparently Audrey needs a good thumping! Yeah, my hubby probably agrees!

I have a very common name and share my name with a 19-year-old porn star (who has been 19 for the last six years btw) from Canada. I can't even get to listing about me because apparently porn gets a lot more hits than just some mom from the Midwest. Urgh...

You have a lovely accent! I have a pretty common name and am pretty much the opposite of Tracy Flick, so the stuff out there on Google makes me think I need to do a lot more if I want to make an impact on the world.

I've Googled myself before. Amazingly, most of the links refer to me, thanks to my unusual last name. And many of them? A wee bit embarrassing, because I was once an idealistic young woman who didn't always think things through.

I Google myself now and again because I know that people from other teams at work might do it before we have a first meeting. Most of my first page listings are about dance rather than work, so that probably confuses them lots.

I hate googling myself because right at the top is this crappy article about me written by a student who didn't bother to fact check and made it seem like I practically invented electricity and penned the Iliad.

well i doubt if there would be anything but it sounds like an interesting way to pass an afternoon.so maybe i will google my name.you have a very pleasant voice catherine and those early pics of wonderbaby are so adorable.

Well this is kind of off-topic but coming from someone (me) who was a smart girl who developed an allergy to achievement in my university days (and it kills me now), I sure wish I had worked so hard and got straight A's and wrote award winning essays and did stuff to try and save the world. You're self-deprecating about your youth, but that's a pretty impressive record.

In contrast, anytime you need to know what happened on Y&R circa 1990-92, just ask... (yeah, groan.)

When I first starting blogging under my pseudonym, I discovered that the same name is used by a woman who does porn. I felt so successful as a blogger the day that my blog finally ranked above her in google results.

Heehee! I've had much the same experience... except once some people who'd never met me, hired me for a job, googled me and found all kinds of random things unrelated to the field, which apparently freaked them out (?? nothing bad, just different sides of me).

I was "forced" to get a MySpace page with my real name on it so that when people googled me, they'd have something pertinent to look at. The idea was that interested parties could focus on my highly entertaining presentation/persona rather than the other political/social/highly personal stuff.

I don't put my real name out there any more if I can help it, but alas, public records/news accounts never die. Now if I could only get rid of that HS athlete. :)